Industry groups are fighting regulation by fomenting scientific uncertainty. DOUBT Is Their Product.
Uncertainty is an inherent problem of science, but manu- factured uncertainty is another matter entirely. Over the past three decades, industry groups have frequently become involved in the investigative process when their interests are threatened. If, for example, studies show that a company is exposing its workers to dangerous levels of a certain chemical, the business typically responds by hiring its own researchers to cast doubt on the studies. Or if a pharmaceutical firm faces questions about the safety of one of its drugs, its executives trumpet company- sponsored trials that show no significant health risks while ignoring or hiding other studies that are much less reassuring. The vilification of threatening research as “junk science” and the corresponding sanctification of industry-commissioned research as “sound science” has become nothing less than stan- dard operating procedure in some parts of corporate America.
Six years old, but what we will face, in fact already are.
